


thread by thread

by commanderofraccoons



Category: Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Angst, F/F, Set During Canon, like between acts, slowly doing prompts, there's talk of regina's weight gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 19:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18482716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commanderofraccoons/pseuds/commanderofraccoons
Summary: Her blood ran cold as Regina’s eyes finally met hers, coming to the realization that the shirt she was wearing was actually hers.orRegina's wardrobe after she's kicked from the Plastics consists of Janis's old clothing.





	thread by thread

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: "junior year after regina gets kicked out of the plastics and none of her stuff fits she wears one of janis’s t shirts that she still has and janis sees her in it"

The following days after Regina was kicked from the Plastics table were some of the strangest in Janis’s high school career. There was an uneasy feeling in the air, and Cady hadn’t even looked in their direction since Tuesday.

 

They succeeded in taking Regina down. Janis’s revenge was done.

 

Seeing Regina retreat to the library to eat— she wouldn’t dare take lunch in the bathroom— simply wasn’t as satisfying as she thought it would be. Maybe her plot didn’t feel complete to her, but what else was there to do? Regina’s popularity was gone, no boyfriend, no friends, and her body had very noticeably changed.

 

But it seemed like it was at a standstill.

 

Regina was a ticking time bomb, and if the years Janis spent being best friends with the girl taught her anything, she wasn’t going to take this lying down. Janis and Damian might not be able to be tracked down in Regina’s warpath, but she could practically see the cogs whirring in Regina’s head every time she saw her. Cady, Gretchen, and Karen were going to be completely blindsided.

 

And maybe if Cady would consider speaking to either herself or Damian, she could warn her of that. But the girl was far too worried about her own climb to power.

 

Figures.

 

She pulled her cheese fries closer, silently thanking the cafeteria ladies for their new weekly addition. The line for them had dwindled significantly since she forced Damian to grab them for her, but the person at the front caused her to do a double take.

 

The ponytail was curly and low to the side, and the blonde hair was unmistakable. Her  _ Juicy _ sweatpants usually would’ve made Janis laugh, but the black t-shirt distracted her.

 

She could only see the side of it, but Janis knew that Regina rarely wore dark colors, let alone in t-shirts. Bright colors tended to make someone pop, and black was  _ slimming _ . Regina would say she didn’t need anything slimming.

 

She apparently did now.

 

Janis watched her grab her tray and turn toward the rest of the cafeteria. She was scanning faces quickly, but Janis knew she wasn’t planning to actually sit with any of them.

 

Though Cady  _ did  _ tell them that their table was the supposed back up for the Plastics when they couldn’t sit at their regular spot.

 

That thought ran through her head every day since Regina’s dethroning, and each time she’d glance over at them, Janis could swear her heart was sitting at the bottom of her stomach.

 

Like right now with Regina’s eyes fixated on Damian. Janis then got a full frontal view of the girl’s shirt, the familiar camp name loudly presented across her chest. It was a camp they’d both went to yearly together up until eighth grade-- Regina claimed it was too  _ babyish  _ to go anymore and pitched her own shirt into her fireplace.

 

She remembered Mr. George scolding Regina in front of her, saying she could’ve at least donated it.

 

Her blood ran cold as Regina’s eyes finally met hers, coming to the realization that the shirt she was wearing was actually hers. She’d always been a little bigger than Regina. Taller, lankier. It wasn’t hard to guess that one of Janis’s shirts from eighth grade would fit Regina during their Junior year. Janis hadn’t seen her old camp shirt in years, presuming she simply lost it, but she always used to leave her clothes at Regina’s. She didn’t doubt that there was an entire wardrobe of hers there after their falling out; Janis just assumed they would’ve all been thrown out.

 

Regina looked away quickly, using her cafeteria tray to shield her shirt, and rushed out one of the side doors.

 

“Isn’t it so weird not to see her in, like, custom Versace?” Damian joked, pulling Janis out of her reverie. “Okay, but I totally thought she was gonna come sit over here when she was glaring at me. Did you see that?”

 

Janis continued staring at the door, no one seemingly paying attention to Regina’s departure. She’d been practically invisible for the last few days, but Janis knew the exact route she was taking to the library.

 

“Like, if she comes to sit here eventually, what are you gonna say?”

 

She said nothing, the orange lettering of the old shirt flashing through her mind at a rate too quickly to process. Janis knew from the other day that Regina was now low on her usual clothing, having thought about the sweatpants admission a few times since. Was she really that desperate to pick out an old camp shirt, one Janis would definitely recognize if she wore it in public? Regina had the money-- why not just go shopping? From what Janis knew about her, she’d guess that the girl would be against buying a bigger size in clothing, whether she needed it or not.

 

“Janis?”

 

“Uh, I have to pee.”

 

She stood from her chair before Damian could even offer a response, and she knew he’d question her later on why she didn’t use the nearest restroom, opting instead to follow Regina out of the cafeteria. Hopefully, he wouldn’t realize exactly what she was doing.

 

The halls were completely barren, the majority of the upperclassmen busy at their lunch tables. She took the left turn she needed for the library, stopping dead in her tracks when she noticed Regina at her locker, tray of food on the ground next to her feet.  _ It’d be so easy. Kick it and keep going. _

 

That’d probably be what Regina would do in her position, but Janis was better than that.

 

Wasn’t she?

 

Janis’s own locker was on the same wall as Regina’s; she remembered complaining to Damian about it on their first day back to school, but it could be of use now. She willed her feet to move over to her locker, mentally deciding on whatever item she’d take out of it. There was always her English research paper that she kept putting off.

 

Why was she even here? Did the shirt really cause her to seek Regina out like this? They hadn’t been alone together in years.

 

Regina apparently didn’t hear her footsteps, but she saw the girl look over at her in her peripheral as soon as she opened her locker. She felt her eyes on her for a few seconds, Janis fighting the urge to turn her head. Sliding her English notebook out from the top shelf, she stayed facing forward.

 

“Nice shirt.”

 

She saw Regina flinch out of the corner of her eye, and Janis fully thought Regina would snap at her for following her, for speaking to her. Instead, the girl closed her locker, glanced over at Janis, and bent down to grab her tray. She stood there for a moment, possibly contemplating her next move, while Janis pretended to dig in her locker.

 

“Thanks,” she murmured, and if anyone else had been in the hallway, Janis probably wouldn’t have heard her. She finally turned to face Regina, but the other girl was already walking away from her. Regina pushed through the double doors to the library, never even glancing back at Janis.

 

She blinked several times, slowly closing her locker, and genuinely wondered if she imagined everything that happened. Janis fully expected Regina to insult her, or at least ignore her.

 

But she just… said thanks. Then walked away.

 

Janis shook her head, pushing down any possible guilt from her revenge plot, and made her way back to the cafeteria.

**Author's Note:**

> send prompts: kleksuh.tumblr.com


End file.
